Labrador power pledge suggested when PM visits N.L. Thursday

ST. JOHN’S – In another indication that the rift between the Harper Conservatives and the Newfoundland and Labrador government may have healed, here are suggestions that Conservative leader Stephen Harper may make a campaign pledge Thursday to support a massive Labrador hydroelectric development in St. John’s.

“The prime minister is coming on Thursday, and I’m looking forward to that with a great deal of anticipation” Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Kathy Dunderdale said this week. “I’ve said time and time again that I would be struck amazed if the prime minister wasn’t supportive of (the) Muskrat Falls (development).”

The province has been lobbying hard for a federal loan guarantee for the Newfoundland-Nova Scotia hydro project to be built on Labrador’s Lower Churchill River, which would see power transmitted to the island of Newfoundland and then by underwater cable to Cape Breton.

But the bid is opposed by Quebec, which is against federal subsidies for the construction of transmission lines. Quebec’s view is that federal subsidization could distort the price and market for electricity and violate international trade agreements.

In mid-February when Harper was in St. John’s, Dunderdale laid out her case for the $6.2-billion project.

In turn, the federal government asked for a detailed breakdown of the economic case for the project, and set a number of conditions necessary to garner federal support.

“We’ve been very seriously engaged for a number of weeks now, and I think we’re at a place where we should be able to hear something very soon,” said Dunderdale, who became premier after the retirement of Danny Williams, whose frequent spats with the prime minister culminated when he drove an Anything-but-Conservative campaign that shut the Harper Conservatives out of Newfoundland in
the 2008 election.

There are only seven seats up for grabs in Newfoundland – six currently held by Liberals and one by the NDP. But with the Conservatives seeking a majority government on May 2, they may be crucial.

In an interview with the Fredericton Daily Gleaner this week, Don Mills of Corporate Research Associates, said three or four seats could switch to the Conservatives this time around.

“Remember last time there was the ABC – Anything-but-Conservative-campaign, which was very successfully run by Danny Williams. But since that time, support for the Conservatives has been rebuilt,” Mills told the newspaper.

Meanwhile, a number of former cabinet colleagues of Williams are reported to be considering running for the federal Conservatives this time out, and Dunderdale has given the OK for her caucus to campaign on behalf of the federal Conservative party, a far cry from the last election when Dunderdale herself campaigned on behalf of Liberal Siobhan Coady, the current MP for St. John’s South-Mount Pearl.

Coady said Tuesday Michael Ignatieff has pledged his support for the Labrador project if the Liberals were to win the election.

At dissolution, the Conservatives held 143 of the 308 seats in the Commons, while the Liberals held 77, the Bloc Quebecois, 47, and the NDP, 36. There were two independent MPs and three vacant seats.

A majority government requires the winning party to take at least 155 seats.